THE ANTIQUITY OF THE RED RACE IN AMERICA. 



By Thomas Wilson, 

 Curator, Deparfment of Prehistoric Anthropology, I\ S. Xatioual Museum. 



The only discussion in this paper is as to the antiquity of the Indian 

 or red race, and this applies only to the aborigines found here by 

 Columbus at tlie time of his discovery. No question is involved of 

 another or earlier race, by whatever name called, whether mound- 

 builder or paleolithic. 



The ancestry of the American race has been variously attributed to 

 Semite, Phtenician, and Mongolian races, and, possibly, to a mixture of 

 some or all, with many additions. The best of these theories have been 

 based only on alleged similarities in characteristics of the Indians and 

 their alleged ancestors. 



The argument can be placed on a broader basis; evidence can be 

 adduced bearing on more extended propositions and can be applied to 

 a larger group of these peoples. 



The preliminary proposition is that the American race of Indians 

 is practically the same throughout the entire hemisphere. With all 

 their diversity of anatomy and physiology (which diversity, by the way, 

 is not greater among Indians than it is among various members of the 

 white or black races), they are of the same type, and form but a single 

 race. Doctor Brinton gave this as his opinion in his address before the 

 Section of Anthropology of the American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science at its New York meeting. It is the basis of his book 

 on "The American Race." Darwin remarks the close family resem- 

 blance between distant tribes in America. Doctor Coleman asserts the 

 essential physical identity of the American Indian. Starting, then, 

 with this assumption of the identity of race, it is to be argued that it 

 began in America in one of two ways — either by evolution from the 

 lower animals or by migration as man from other countries. 



In whichever of these ways the red man appeared in America, we 

 are entitled to suppose, and may fairly argue, that in the beginning the 

 race was here represented by but few individuals. There may have 

 been but a single pair, or there may have been a hundred pairs, of 

 individuals. Either number will suit the argument. Accepting, then, 

 as a fact, the beginning of the red mau in America with a small 

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